Well, we don't really have the unresized image though, because it would be 720x480 or 720x576 otherwise (depending on if you have NTSC or PAL DVDs), but it's 720x540. Also, while I would believe you this is without TDeint(), I still believe it's more likely this needs to be IVTC'd rather than plain deinterlaced. But in order to be sure about that I'd need a small video sample with a pan or zoom (and the small odds of a VFR thing are still there). Just clip it off DGIndex with the [ and ] buttons and then File > Save Project and Demux Video and upload the small m2v.

Either way, this really doesn't need filtering, imho. The most you might want to do is to calm down the grain a bit. Judging from the screen it's not even bad, I'd actually keep it, but if you insist, a light denoise (but really really light, not deen) would be enough, but I can't stress enough how most anything you'd do to it is likely too much anyway. And I'm not giving code examples precisely because I wouldn't do anything.

Also, I take you need to upscale it to 720p for MEP requirements. Do keep in mind that you'll need to crop off a lot vertically before upscaling, since you'll need to have a 16:9 area. No matter what you'll do, though, it will look bad, because upscaling is just bad. But if you need to do it, then sharpening after the upscale is a requirement. I'd look into nnedi3 and/or eedi3 upscale to twice the res or more, then a sharp downscale (maybe with invks, though it's not meant to be used like that), and then filtering if needed. Though at that point, the grain will look bad since it's not at its intended resolution, so filtering it out might be necessary in such a case, but the risk of having details go away is high. Basically upscaling is the root of your quality issues.

mirkosp wrote:Well, we don't really have the unresized image though, because it would be 720x480 or 720x576 otherwise (depending on if you have NTSC or PAL DVDs), but it's 720x540. Also, while I would believe you this is without TDeint(), I still believe it's more likely this needs to be IVTC'd rather than plain deinterlaced. But in order to be sure about that I'd need a small video sample with a pan or zoom (and the small odds of a VFR thing are still there). Just clip it off DGIndex with the [ and ] buttons and then File > Save Project and Demux Video and upload the small m2v.

Either way, this really doesn't need filtering, imho. The most you might want to do is to calm down the grain a bit. Judging from the screen it's not even bad, I'd actually keep it, but if you insist, a light denoise (but really really light, not deen) would be enough, but I can't stress enough how most anything you'd do to it is likely too much anyway. And I'm not giving code examples precisely because I wouldn't do anything.

Also, I take you need to upscale it to 720p for MEP requirements. Do keep in mind that you'll need to crop off a lot vertically before upscaling, since you'll need to have a 16:9 area. No matter what you'll do, though, it will look bad, because upscaling is just bad. But if you need to do it, then sharpening after the upscale is a requirement. I'd look into nnedi3 and/or eedi3 upscale to twice the res or more, then a sharp downscale (maybe with invks, though it's not meant to be used like that), and then filtering if needed. Though at that point, the grain will look bad since it's not at its intended resolution, so filtering it out might be necessary in such a case, but the risk of having details go away is high. Basically upscaling is the root of your quality issues.

Thanks for the response Mirk. I've been so frustrated over this source. I've tried a ton of stuff but no matter what I did I couldn't get it to look any kind of good.

Can you link me to the filters you were talking about? Depending on scene usage and effects usage though, I might not need to use them. Cause not all the scenes are this bad looking. I just picked an unfairly bad one.

I think a better way to "denoise" this would be to deband it in a smart way in combo with removegrain, actually. That should retain more details while tuning down most of the more noticeable grain.Something like this:

Which doesn't completely remove the grain, just calms it down to more acceptable levels. Some finer details will be killed though. I gave other filters a quick try, but they were way too strong for this anyway.Though, once upscaled, this is still bad to look at. Not much you can do about that.

mirkosp wrote:I think a better way to "denoise" this would be to deband it in a smart way in combo with removegrain, actually. That should retain more details while tuning down most of the more noticeable grain.Something like this:

Quoted Image converted to link:http://www.abload.de/img/0rggf3n0vpbd.pngWhich doesn't completely remove the grain, just calms it down to more acceptable levels. Some finer details will be killed though. I gave other filters a quick try, but they were way too strong for this anyway.Though, once upscaled, this is still bad to look at. Not much you can do about that.

Damn. And this is a direct DVD Rip from my collection. It's El Hazard 2. I was just hoping to use the Kiss scene between Shayla Shayla and Princess Fatora posing as Makoto. Like I said. The scene I originally linked was the worst of them all.

I wish they would remaster the entire El Hazard Series. It's one of my fav all time anime. Not to mention Shayla Shayla is my favorite anime character in all of history. Don't ask me why, Not quite sure myself. But she always has been since I originally saw the anime back in the good ole days.

If it's just one scene you need, I think you might want to give vectoring/photoshop a try. Basically, redraw the scene frame by frame so that it's properly detailed at 720p. Assuming you're doing multianime and that's the only scene you need from an SD source, you might need to do, what... 20 frames or so tops? Depends on the framerate of the animation, but yeah, assuming roughly 10-12 actual fps animation and a couple seconds long scene, it sounds about right and feasible.

mirkosp wrote:If it's just one scene you need, I think you might want to give vectoring/photoshop a try. Basically, redraw the scene frame by frame so that it's properly detailed at 720p. Assuming you're doing multianime and that's the only scene you need from an SD source, you might need to do, what... 20 frames or so tops? Depends on the framerate of the animation, but yeah, assuming roughly 10-12 actual fps animation and a couple seconds long scene, it sounds about right and feasible.

I got it taken care of. Thanks for the help. Sorry for being a pester.

Also, what's a good filter for gettign rid of artifacting? I"m asking for another source now.

That's not too easy to reply if you don't specify which artifact... but I guess perhaps smoothd2 does a good job at covering generic smoothing needs? Worked well to handle blocking, noise, and ringing, for me.

mirkosp wrote:That's not too easy to reply if you don't specify which artifact... but I guess perhaps smoothd2 does a good job at covering generic smoothing needs? Worked well to handle blocking, noise, and ringing, for me.

Umm, it kinda looks like a pencil traced outline of the character is there after the character moves from that spot. That kinda thing.